Tree sales show we pine for Christmas

CHRISTMAS trees are selling faster this year than Santa’s sleigh flies through the air on December 24.

Growers say demand has soared as people want to enjoy a great Christmas af ter a tough year marred by the pandemic.

With the 2020 harvest well under way, Irish Christmas Tree Growers chairman Martin Kelleher said: ‘ We have s een a signif i cant increase in demand for real Irish Christmas trees this year compared to the same period in 2019, demonstrating an appetite amongst people to start the 2020 Christmas festivities earlier.

‘Our members are reporting that the number of trees sold and ordered for collection or delivery to date has increased well over half, the vast majority of which are coming through online orders.’

Mr Kelleher, who has been cultivating firs on his farm near Ballymore Eustace, Co. Kildare, for nearly 40 years, added: ‘The latest restrictions have forced us all to change the way we live and work. It has driven some of our customers online to pre-order their real Christmas tree in numbers we could never have anticipated.’

Online orders are a month ahead of 2019’s with at least one festive fan putting his tree up before the end of October with plans to replace it nearer the big day.

After a tough year of lockdown, Mr Kelleher said people really want to enjoy a great Christmas this year. ‘People want a real Christmas tree and the message we’re hearing from our customers is they want to go to the extra effort to bring joy into their homes this Christmas,’ he said.

Fellow grower Christy Kavanagh, from Co. Wicklow, said: ‘People are very positive. We’ve already sold trees to people who have them up with lights on them, one before the end of October.

‘I said, “Are you not worried the tree won’t last?” He said he wasn’t worried, he’d buy another tree! “They’re only the price of a bunch of flowers in a florist’s”.’